


Perfect

by thinkinghardhardlythinking



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:59:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29114898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkinghardhardlythinking/pseuds/thinkinghardhardlythinking
Summary: After a hunt Dean and Y/N are forced to have a conversation about their relationship.Angst. Flangst. There are allusions to abuse and bad relationships/domestic violence in the Reader’s past. I’d say it’s not really explored but consider this a potential TW anyway. Show level violence. Anger.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & You, Dean Winchester/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	Perfect

He was angry. You’d seen him angry before but this…his rage was white hot. He wasn’t bitching. He wasn’t shouting. He was silent. His knuckles white from his clenched grip around Baby’s steering wheel.

You stayed quiet in the passenger seat hoping time would calm him down a bit.

You wished Sam was here. Sam would have been a welcome buffer but he was in Sioux Falls helping Jody out on a case. You and Dean had let him go on ahead, knowing Jody would never have called unless she really needed the back up and promising to join him there as soon as you’d finished dealing with the vamp’s here, in Wyoming.

You wondered if you’d leave to join him later tonight or if you’d leave it until tomorrow now. You’d ask but you didn’t want to ‘poke the bear’ right now. He had better calm down soon though, you thought. You had no desire to indulge this mood of his much longer.

You pulled up outside the motel room and he parked. He got out of the Impala, slamming the door behind him. Shit. He must be really mad if he slammed Baby’s door like that. 

“He’s sorry, Baby.” You said, to the quiet of her interior, wondering when you’d started talking to her like he did. 

You got out of the car and made your way into the room. He was already inside, had already disappeared into the bathroom, but he’d left the door to the room open for you. That was something. The whole of the journey back from the nest he’d acted as if you weren’t even there. You’d felt like a ghost. There but undetected. Near the person you loved but not even registering to them. Or at least that was how it had felt.

You heard the flush of the toilet and the sound of the sink faucet as he washed his hands. God, you hated this. Usually the both of you, were in sync; laughing and ragging on each other, kissing and messing around. Even when you argued, sure you raised your voices a little but it was an even, equal thing…and usually it ended up in some pretty explosive make up sex in hardly any time at all.

This? This was something else…the silent treatment, the searing, seething anger, the hostility you felt in his icy distance. This hadn’t happened before. 

He pushed open the door, carrying one of the plastic cups that had been by the sink, half full of water, and putting it on the night stand nearest you.

You could hear his breathing, loud and forced as he struggled to keep his composure, made even louder by the lack of any noise in the room. He made his way over to his open duffel bag on the table, fishing out the bag of the basic first aid stuff he brought on hunts like this. He didn’t look at you, didn’t make eye contact but threw the bag on the bed and came over to you.

He placed a hand on each of your biceps as he walked you back to sit on the bed, under the light of the overhead bulb. His grip wasn’t painful, he wasn’t ‘man handling’ you, but it wasn’t exactly tender either. It wasn’t his usual touch.

You looked up at his face but still he wouldn’t make eye contact. He let go of your arms and lifted your head, pushing your hair back so he could examine the bite again. He’d already looked at it extensively back at the nest, asking over and over again if you were OK. That was before the silence of the car journey. He’d been worried and concerned then. Now he just seemed…pissed.

He poured antiseptic wash into the cup of water and submerged a ball of cotton wool in it and then started dragging it against the bite mark on your neck. It stung but you refused to let it show. You were still looking up at him, seeing his emerald eyes, dark and rage filled still as he continued what must surely be a concerted effort to not let his eyes meet with yours. 

He tended to your wound as you watched the flex of his jaw muscles as they clenched and the flare of his nostrils with each heavy, angry breath. You weren’t keeping quiet out of contrition or meekness. You just didn’t really know what to do. He’d never been like this before. Up until today when he was mad it was either at someone else, in which case he’d curse and complain, loudly, or it was at you when he’d tell you why he was pissed and you’d bicker for a while until the kissing started. You had no map for the terrain of this new mood of his that you’d not encountered before. He stared at your neck before putting a large adhesive bandage over it, though, you noticed he did it with care, purposefully sticking it down gently.

“Dean-” You started saying. It was the first time you’d spoken since you’d gotten into Baby just over an hour ago.

“How could you?” He asked, the anger only just under the surface of his speech.

“What was I supposed to do? Just stay back and let you fight off a whole nest of vamps by yourself?”

“Yes.” He said, loudly and adamantly as he turned around to face you. “Exactly. Just like I told you to do.”

“I don’t know why you think anything about either our relationship or us hunting together means you get to ‘tell me’ to do anything and have me just….follow your orders.” Your voice was quiet but full of steely conviction.

“You could’ve gotten yourself killed!!” He shouted before roaring at you. “DON’T YOU EVER FUCKING DO THAT AGAIN!” It was silent in the room for a split second but clearly not inside Dean’s roiling mind as nearly instantaneously he broke the vacuum of noiselessness. 

“FUCK!” He hollered and it was like a rage filled war cry of a primitive barbarian, ringing out violently through the silence that had previously filled the room.

In one fluid, sudden movement he moved, creating a flurry of action and riotous noise as he smashed the contents of the night stand; the lamp, the phone, the pad and the pen and the cup now full of bloodied water and used cotton wool, onto the floor before standing and punching the framed motel ‘art’ that was hanging on the wall with a powerful, loud thud as his fist shattered a cobweb of cracks across the glass. 

You hadn’t meant to but the volume, the violence of his outburst and his passionate ferocity had caused you to cower, instinctively hunching into yourself and lifting your hands to cover your head. You hadn’t thought about it. You knew, knew, without a shadow of a doubt that his anger wouldn’t play itself out at you but still…the sudden cacophony of noise and fury had caused an involuntary protective stance. You felt your heart racing and your chest heaving with shallow breaths, as you looked at him, still a little taken aback from his sudden outburst. Still flinching.

You opened your eyes to see his face creased in concern and hurt. He looked like you’d slapped him.

“I…I…didn’t mean to scare you.” He said, his voice quieter now and laced with genuine remorse.

“It’s….” You took a deep breath. “Can you just not shout? Can we just talk about this?”

He came and sat next to you on the bed, his protective worry clear on his face as he saw how you were still shaking.

“I didn’t mean to yell. I was just…fuck, Y/N…I was so scared. What if something had happened to you? What would I have done?”

“You’d have had to find a new girlfriend.” You said, instantly regretting your ill advised attempt at lightening the mood.

He closed his eyes as if trying to force himself to regroup. “That’s not funny.” He said, when he opened them again.

“We were hunting. We hunted. They were coming for you. What was I supposed to do? Hang back and watch you totally outnumbered and…what…not try and help?”

He shut his eyes and licked his lips, trying to calm himself down. “I get it, OK. I get it but when I saw them…go for you. Saw that motherfucker bite down on your neck…I…I just…” He trailed off.

You reached for his hand. “Dean, I understand. But I’m a hunter. I’ve been a hunter a damn sight longer than I’ve been your girlfriend. And I know it must’ve been hard for you to see that-”

“Hard?!” He scoffed, as if the word was woefully lacking in conveying the reality of what he had felt.

“Yes. But it was just as hard for me to watch them coming for you. We have each other’s backs. It’s been that way this whole time. That doesn’t change just because we’re in a relationship now.”

He swallowed thickly. “You can’t do that again.”

“Sorry. But…same circumstances, I’d do exactly the same again. And you would for me and Sam would for the both of us.”

He was quiet for a moment. “What happened before?”

“What? In the nest?”

“No. Just then…you…flinched?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know…but…you know I’d never hurt you, right? You have to know that?”

“I know.”

“So…what was that?”

“I don’t know. Instinct? Stuff from the past? I’m not sure…”

He looked hurt. And sad. Wounded. “Were you scared of me?”

“No…God, no. I know you’d never hurt me. I just…you threw all the stuff on the floor and punched that goddawful painting…and it was all just loud and…weird…and I’m probably still all ‘Fight or Flight’ from before…”

He looked down at the floor and nodded slowly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK.”

“No. It’s not.” He said, in a small, quiet voice. “I would never, ever, hurt you…ever.”

“I know.”

“I’m not OK with scaring you either.”

“Dean…it’s just…it’s been ‘a day’, OK? That’s all.”

He was quiet for a moment before he stood up. “You haven’t eaten since breakfast…how about I go get us some pizza or something?”

You looked at him. He still looked devastated. Maybe he needed a break, you thought. “Sure.” You said, giving him a smile that you could feel came off weak. He squeezed your shoulder, affectionately, before bending to kiss the top of your head.

“I’ll be back soon.” He said. And he left.

You cleared up the mess from his ‘outburst’ and then lay back on the bed and took a few deep breaths. You hadn’t been saying it to make him feel better. You were still pretty shaken up by the day you’d had. He didn’t have the monopoly on fear and the force of yours had been unbearable when you’d seen the eight vamps surrounding Dean in the dingy nest, fangs exposed and snarling.

Yes, he’d told you to hang back and yes, he’d told you to stay behind him. You hadn’t said anything because you hadn’t really had the time to get into a debate right there and then so you’d let him think you had listened. And you had, you just hadn’t agreed. He’d charged on, taking the lead and you’d thought ‘fine, let him take point, all gung ho and full of swagger,’ you’d be the cavalry, bringing up the rear, but then they’d swarmed, all their attention on Dean as you were pretty sure was his plan as he wise cracked and provoked them, to keep them focused in him not you, you knew. 

There had been times before when hunts had gone south…way south, there had even been a couple of times when you’d been pretty sure that was it, that your number was definitely up. And being a hunter was almost entirely putting yourself in dangerous, terrifying situations. It was an occupational hazard and you were no stranger to fear. But still…

In that moment, you had felt it like you had never felt it before. All you saw was Dean and eight bloodthirsty potential threats who wanted to hurt him, drain him, kill him. You didn’t have time to think about the fear, it was just there; the acrid taste in your mouth, the swelling surge of it as it flooded your system fusing with your pumping adrenaline to make you move, as fast as you could, as sure as you could, as fucking deadly as you could. It wasn’t a coherent plan, it certainly wasn’t strategy…it was simple. Protect him. Help him. Save him. Because he was your everything and you could not have him hurt. Or worse.

It was beyond ridiculous for him to expect you to just not do anything. Of course, you were going to push forward and of course you were going to swing wide and swing heavy. You were a hunter. With a hunter’s training and instincts and a goddamn machete in your hand. The idea that you’d just stand back and watch him go toe to toe with eight supercharged monsters while you, what? Hoped? Cheered? Prayed? Rewatched old episodes of ‘Friends’ in your head waiting for him to deal with it? Beyond. Ridiculous.

And it was fine. You’d been fine. You’d taken the head off two of them, he’d taken the head off three. It was just unfortunate that in the melee, while Dean had been fighting one of them, the other two had managed to disarm you and while one held you down, the other had bitten down on the tender skin of your neck.

It had all happened pretty quick. You’d felt the insane strength in the way they fought. You’d felt another raging spike in the cocktail of fear and adrenaline pumping at an alarming rate through your veins. You’d felt the blind animal panic of being held down by a much stronger, potentially lethal, adversary. You’d felt the pain, as sharp pointed teeth pierced through your skin, tearing downwards into your soft flesh and the heavy ache of pressure through the suction on the wound.

And you’d heard the loud, long, broken ‘NO!” that had come from Dean as he saw what had happened. You weren’t sure you would ever be able to unhear it. It was all the things that were racing inside of you; fear, pain, panic - but hearing them in the anguished cry of the man you loved as it echoed off the walls of the nest somehow made it so much worse.

And it had been fine. He’d fought them and killed them and saved you. It was all fine. 

Except it didn’t feel fine.

The terrifying emotions that had been pumping through your system hadn’t dissipated, they still flooded you, marinating your brain in their toxic stew. 

At first, he’d been devastated, worried, on his knees, his hand against your face, with the panic of a small boy in his wide eyes. 

“Y/N? Y/N! Hey…hey, hey…you alright? Look at me? Can you talk to me? Come on, sweetheart…talk to me…please, please just say something…you’re fine. Stay with me, OK? Please…just stay with me.” He has said, forcing an unconvincing but deliberate and effortful smile onto the brave face he was putting on. “You’re totally fine…just let me look, OK? I just need to have a look…”

You were still dazed, still a little weak, still in shock, as he pushed your hair away from the wound, a few strands already trying to stick to the rapidly congealing blood as he pulled them away, causing you to hiss involuntarily as they tugged their way free.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby. I know…” He said, as he carefully tried to ascertain what was blood stain and what was open wound. You watched, still reeling as he rearranged his features into a forced expression of relaxed jovial reassurance. “You know what, it’s barely a scratch!”

You rallied yourself, mainly for him, mainly because you could see the terror he was so bravely trying to disguise as he tried to be strong for you.

“I know, you big drama queen. I’m fine. No one bled on me. It’s just…it’s nothing. I’ve had worse hickies.”

You saw the relief flood his face as he heard you bantering. And then he sank, like a marionette with his strings cut, onto the floor next to you, finally allowing himself to breathe.

You’d sat there for what seemed like ages, beheaded corpses scattered around you as he held you close, kissing you repeatedly on the top of your head and seemingly unable to stop himself from asking you the same question over and over again.

“Baby, you sure you’re alright?”

The first few times you’d nodded. Then you’d said ‘Mmm Hmm.’ Then you’d said, ‘I’m OK, I’m fine.’ And finally you’d said ‘Yeah…I just really want to get out of here.’ And he’d helped you up off the dirt ridden bloody floor, holding you up as you were still a little unsteady on your feet, his arm under yours and around your back as you made your way back to Baby. 

And that’s when the silence had set in.

You got up off the bed. You washed and changed your bloody soaked clothes. You took some painkillers, the strong ones from Dean’s stash. And then you settled back on the bed, flicking through TV stations until he came back.

The both of you ate pizza from the box between you on the bed with the TV on, you’d found a channel playing ‘Back to the Future’ and you let it play, the familiarity of watching Marty McFly skateboarding about and avoiding the misguided affections of his unknowing mother providing much needed comfort. 

He wasn’t mean or giving you the silent treatment, but something was definitely up. He spoke to you but it wasn’t like normal. He wasn’t being like he normally was with you. Though he was trying. You could see he was trying.

After you’d offered him the last slice and he’d taken it, you picked up the box and put it by the side of the bed before turning the TV off with the remote.

He looked at you confused and disappointed. “Hey…weren’t we watchin’ that?”

“He’s about to sing ‘Johnny B Goode’, Dean…we both know this movie inside and out.”

“Because it’s a good movie.”

“For sure.” You agreed. “And I’ll happily watch it with you again next movie night…but right now, you’re being weird and I hate it and I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Is this still because you’re mad at me? Dean, we’re hunters…stuff like this happens…”

“I know. I’m not mad.”

“OK. Good. Because you’d never tell Sam to stay back so if this is because I’m a woman-”

“It’s not because you’re a woman.” He said, his face creasing up as if the very idea was ridiculous. “And I’m not mad, OK?”

“OK…so what is it?”

“Nothin-”

“Dean.”

“Look. You’re a great hunter and I get it, it was stupid for me to tell you to hang back, but…”

”But?”

“But….” He said, his voice lowering as he finally let you hear how he was really feeling. “I have never in my whole life been as afraid as I was when I saw you bein’ attacked by those vamp’s today.”

“I know, baby…” You said, shuffling nearer to him on the bed and reaching to put your arm around him.

“Don’t.” He said, shifting away from you. You pulled back, stung by his rejection. His voice softened slightly as he continued to talk. “Don’t comfort me. Whatever I felt today, it was nothing compared to what you went through. Yeah, it was shitty and yeah, I was afraid but it actually happened to you…” He shook his head as if he was disappointed in himself. “…and I couldn’t handle it. I freaked out at the idea of something happenin’ to you and instead of putting you first, instead of stowing my shit and being who you needed me to be, being there like you needed me to be…I just….did the patented Dean Winchester move…shut down and lashed out.”

“Dean, I think you’re being really harsh on yours-”

“Please don’t. Don’t be kind and understanding and forgiving…because it just shows me even more how great you are and what an asshole I am and how much I don’t deserve you.”

You didn’t say anything, afraid that anything you did say would accidentally hurt him more. You hated seeing him like this. Hated his sadness. Hated even more the default self hatred that was written all over his face. You just wanted to hold him but you really didn’t want to feel him pulling away from you again. You forced yourself to sit still and let him continue.

“I get why you did what you did. Of course you weren’t gonna just…hang back…and you shouldn’t. But I lost my mind today when I thought I might’ve…when I thought I might have lost you…I don’t know what I would have done. It scared the shit out of me. Scares the shit outta me. And I hate that instead of comforting you, instead of making you feel better, my default move was to…” He trailed off, momentarily. “When I was out getting pizza…I was drivin’…thinkin’…and I felt awful. I kept thinking about what could have happened. And then I thought about how scared you must’ve been…and I thought, I’ll get the food and I’ll go back and I’ll hold her, make her feel safe and loved. Take her mind off things…make some jokes, maybe watch a movie…stroke her hair and tell her I love her. Find a way to make it better…and look…couldn’t even give you that.” He huffed bitterly.

“Dean…you always make me feel safe and loved. It’s OK if you found today hard, I did too. We’ll talk and get everything out and move past it and you’ll be making awful jokes before Doc tells Marty that where they’re going they ‘don’t need roads’.” You said, smiling at him.

He smiled back, his face softening at your obvious attempt to make him feel better, but still full of his deep aching sadness.

“Something else is up, isn’t it? Please tell me.” You said, reaching over to put your hand on his, glad he didn’t pull it away from you this time.

“It’s not true.” He said, giving you a sad, wry smile.

“What isn’t?”

“I don’t always make you feel safe and loved.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You flinched. I’m not blaming you…of course you did. I scared you. And you flinched. Because you were afraid of me.”

“What? Dean…I had just had a pretty traumatic experience like an hour before that…it was probably the adrenaline or some kind of short term PTSD..or ‘Fight or-”

“Flight…yeah, I know. But I scared you. You were hurt and you were scared and instead of making it better I went cold and quiet and weird and then…then I scared you more. You. The woman I love. I made it worse.”

“Dean, I really didn’t mean to-”

“I know. And that’s worse….because it means that it was some part of your subconscious…a part buried deep down…that part? That part knows to be scared of me…you might think you’re not and you might not want to be…but you are…”

“It’s human nature to be startled by loud noises!” You said, exasperated by how an instinctive, momentary, automatic reaction had caused him to feel so hurt.

“To jump, yeah, OK…maybe. To cower, to make yourself small, to instinctively flinch as if scared of being hurt…that’s different. And I don’t blame you. You know me. You saw me with the Mark. You saw me as a Demon. You know what I did in Hell…the part of you that’s scared of me is smart. And it’s right. Sweetheart, I love you. I love you so fuckin’ much. You. You and Sammy…you’re everything to me. Everything. Maybe I was so caught up in that…in how great you are…in how lucky I was to have found you…maybe I didn’t stop and think about what you were getting out of the deal.”

“What are you saying?” You said, suddenly afraid of where he was going with this. “Are you…what? Breaking up with me?”

“No…I don’t know…I’m saying…maybe you’d be better off without me.”

“So, what? Earlier today you were scared of losing me…but now you want us to break up? So you’ll lose me?” You stared at him with a look of bafflement at his flawed logic.

“I don’t want to lose you…believe me, that’s the last thing in the world I want. But the only thing worse than losing you would be to hurt you. And when you’re scared of someone who’s supposed to love you, it hurts. When you scare the person you love, you are hurting them. And I know…maybe more than anything else in the world that I never, ever want to hurt you. I get it, OK…I understand…I grew up with a father who made me flinch every time he raised his voice…until I trained myself not to…until I forced myself not to…for Sam…for my Old Man…maybe because I didn’t know what else to do…and that twisted up parts of me that can never be untwisted….made me the kind of man who punches walls and shitty framed paintings in motel rooms…I can’t do that to you…I won’t.”

“Maybe I had a father like that too. Maybe I just didn’t train myself not to. Maybe parts of me got twisted too. Maybe you don’t know everything there is to know about me.”

“Maybe. But I know enough. Enough to love you. Enough to know you deserve…fuck, Y/N…you deserve the world. Not some guy who can’t keep his shit together enough to make you feel better after you nearly fuckin’ died.”

“I didn’t ‘nearly die’!”

“You deserve better than to be with a man who punches shit and makes you flinch.” He said, seriously, as if this sentence summed everything up.

“The part of me that flinched is not afraid of you, Dean. It’s just…it’s seen violence and aggression and it’s learned behaviour. Did it ever occur to you that maybe it wasn’t about you?”

His face looked serious as he stared at you. “Because of hunting? Or because of…what you just said…your Dad?”

“Because of lots of things. Yeah, hunting. The past. Also…you seem to think you’re this damaged, twisted, broken man who I think would hurt me-”

“If the shoe fits.”

“Yeah, but that’s my point. It doesn’t. I see you. And I know you. We are both hunters. There is a part of that that is inherently tied to violence. That’s true for both of us. For all of us…but you’re a good man. A brave, strong man who protects the people he loves, whatever it takes…maybe I wasn’t always so lucky as to be with men like that…”

“What?” He asked, a steely edge to his voice. “Someone else? Someone who hurt you?”

“If I wanted to talk about it, I’d have told you about it before. I’m not hiding anything…I just…not everyone who claimed to love me, loved me like you do…and not everyone who should have protected me, protected me like you do.”

“How could they not?” He asked as if he really couldn’t understand. 

“I don’t know.…somehow they thought they loved me but it turned out who I was, how I was…it all just ended up annoying them, making them resent me, making them angrier…making them hurt me instead of love me. They were broken men, angry men…”

“Y/N…I am a broken man, an angry man…”

“No. You’re not. You’re a human man who is allowed to have the whole spectrum of human emotion, anger included…and who has never turned that anger against me, never unleashed it at me. And you’re a man who has survived everything that tried to break him…and come back stronger. Who is full of love…for me, for Sam, for others…”

“Who hurt you? I’ll kill them. I know it doesn’t exactly help my point…but I don’t care…I’ll fucking kill anyone who has ever-”

“Dean.” You said softly. “It’s OK. I don’t need to be saved. I saved myself. And I don’t need to be avenged. I moved on and I’m happy. That’s the best revenge…all I need is to be loved. And to be heard. So..please hear me…I’m not scared of you. I love you. I know the difference between bad love, love that hurts and punishes and controls and destroys…and good love…love that accepts and celebrates and supports and nourishes…I know because I learned the hard way. And we? We have the good love…”

“I just…I don’t get it. How could anyone be like that with you?”

“I know, right…I mean I’m pretty much perfect.” You said, attempting to make a joke to diffuse the tension.

“Don’t…don’t say it like it’s a joke…I know you’re joking, but it’s true.”

“No one’s perfect, Dean.”

“You are. To me.” He said, staring at you in a way that let you know he really meant it. Made you feel it, not just hear it. His eyes looked so soft, so full of love. You could feel the overpowering strength of how much he loved you just from the look in his eyes alone. It made you feel aware of your heart in your chest, physically, actually. And it felt full. It felt lucky and cherished and loved. It felt like despite all the scars from people who’d said they loved you before but didn’t know how to, under the scar tissue left in their wake, it was healed.

He lifted his hand to gently stroke against your cheek before saying it again. Because he wanted you to know it bore repeating. “To me, you are perfect.”

“Well, to me you are.”

“No one’s perfect, Y/N…you just said it yourself. And even if they were…I am a long way from that.”

“I saw a quote once that said ‘Your flaws are perfect for the heart that’s meant to love you’. Maybe my heart was meant to love you. Maybe yours was meant to love me. Maybe that’s why we’re not perfect…but we’re perfect for each other?”

He smiled, despite himself. “Nah, you’re ‘perfect’ perfect. You’re kind and brave and patient and awesome to be around, sexy as hell…and you just came out with that quote out of nowhere, I mean…that’s pretty smart.”

“I saw it in a magazine, next to an article about a reality TV star.”

“Modest, too.” Raising his eyebrow as he said it, as if daring you to come up with any flaw you might have that he wouldn’t somehow find himself loving anyway.

“You don’t scare me. You didn’t with the Mark. You didn’t as a Demon. You didn’t today. But some stuff does…or did. I have some stuff…issues or whatever…like everyone does. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to always do the right thing. You just have to try. Like you did tonight, when you were thinking about ways to make me feel better. When you talked to me about what was on your mind, even though I know you hate shit like that. You just have to love me…the way you love me…with the good love.”

“What did I do to end up with someone as great as you? I can’t remember ever doing anything nearly good enough to deserve someone as good as you.”

“I don’t know. You saved the world and all of humanity a few times, maybe that’s what did it…or maybe it’s not about you. Maybe I did something really bad?” You teased. “Like I said, you don’t know everything about me.”

“And like I said, I know enough. Enough to love you. And anything else you’ll tell me when you’re ready. I can wait.”

“So…you’re not breaking up with me, then? ‘Maybe you’d be better off without me’?” You said, doing your best impression of his deep, gravelly voice.

He laughed. “What did you call me earlier? A drama queen? Well…maybe I have my moments.”

“Maybe…maybe you’re perfect anyway.”

You smiled at him feeling like all the intensity of the day, all the thoughts that had been buzzing away in your respective minds, all the ‘stuff’ that was not really part of who he and you really were when you were together…all of that had just fallen away. You’d talked and all the debris from the past sadness, projected fears and rogue vampire’s had been cleared away, leaving the paths between your heart and his finally clear again. It felt good. It felt like the way he normally was with you. It felt like the good love.

You picked up the remote, turning the TV back on as you let him wrap his arms around you and pull you close to him. 

“I’m just so glad you’re alright.” He said, his voice rich with the simple honesty of his words. “You got to be more careful, OK? I know you got that wound on your neck now…but I got it worse because you…you are a pain in my ass.” 

You glanced at him as he raised his eyebrows at you, getting the expression on his face that always followed the delivery of one of his ‘jokes’.

You rolled your eyes before deliberately taking an exaggerated deep breath, as if your patience was being tested by his poor attempt at humour. But then you smiled, genuinely. Pleased that he was joking again. Pleased to be in the comfort of both his arms and the dubious glow of his ‘comedic’ word play.

“You’d better back this thing up Doc. We haven’t got enough road to get up to 88.” said Marty, in the Delorean on TV.

“Roads?” Doc Brown said to Marty, as Dean kissed you softly on the cheek before nuzzling in close to you, “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”


End file.
